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New
role for Washington Directed by Tony Scott an acclaimed film director who is credited with hits in the caliber of Top Gun, Spy Games and Crimson Tide, Man on Fire is tipped to be another hit this season. The movie set in places of El Paso Texas and Mexico, where a wave of kidnappings has gripped through the country, feeding a growing sense of panic among its wealthier citizens. In the one six - day period, there were 24 abductions reported , leading many to hire bodyguards for their children. This is the context in which Washington comes into place giving a very strong performance as Creasy (Ex CIA assassin, dejected and overcome with anomie). Creasy’s friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) brings him to Mexico City to be a bodyguard to nine-year-old Pita Ramos (Dakota Fanning), daughter of industrialist Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and his wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell). Creasy is not interested in being a bodyguard, especially to a youngster, but for lack of something better to do, he accepts the assignment. Though Creasy is the main character, the crux of the film is in his relationship to Pita, the young girl who he is hired, and ultimately fails, to protect. The relationship is particularly important to Creasy’s story because it is via Pita that Creasy finds interest in life again. Scott had recognized certain qualities in Washington that would serve him well as Creasy. “I love Denzel’s obsessive quality and his internal darkness,” says the director. “There’s a hardness to Denzel that’s really interesting. He knows how to draw it out and use it effectively. Denzel really brings across how Creasy closes himself off as a defense mechanism against the world. So when his heart does begin to thaw, it’s all the more moving.” “Creasy has lost himself in alcohol, lost his purpose and life, and couldn’t cope with what he had done as a government operative/assassin and what he is good at,” says Washington. “He is detached, and that’s what happens when you kill people for a living. Creasy is a lost soul who no longer has the ability to love, and through this little girl, he finds himself and reconnects with his soul and life.” To give Man On Fire a taught, claustrophobic, and reality-based feel, the production filmed mostly on location throughout Mexico City. Shooting in the oldest, largest and most traffic-congested city in North America was a constant challenge. More than 50 vehicles moving cast, crew and equipment had to negotiate the city’s narrow and crowded streets, spending hours making their way through grinding traffic. In addition, general strikes were an almost daily fact of life, and it is said that the filmmakers had to wade through Mexico City’s labyrinthine bureaucracy of 17 mini-states, each with its own municipality and governor. In 2001, Scott was at the helm with two other big-name stars in Spy Game. The taut, ambitious thriller reunited Robert Redford and Brad Pitt for the first time since 1992’s A River Runs Through It. Scott’s ability to mine box office gold from a deft blending of material and talent was evident in his last film, Enemy of The State . Starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the political thriller became one of biggest hits of 1998. That same year, Scott directed one episode of the cable series “The Hunger” trilogy, with Giovanni Ribisi and David Bowie, an adaptation of his 1983 feature film. Pita Ramos played by Dakota Fanning is currently shooting Twentieth Century Fox’s psychological thriller Hide and Seek with Robert De Niro. She became the youngest actor, at age 7, to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance as the daughter of a mentally handicapped man played by Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Marc Anthony plays the role of Samuel Ramos Pita’s wealthy father, also a Grammy Award-winning international pop/salsa superstar and actor. Anthony appeared as Noel in Martin Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead and earned critical praise for his role as the silent waiter, representing the spirit of the movie, in Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci’s Big Night. Anthony played a young Secret Service agent in the feature film HACKERS, and a troubled youth in the 1996 film The Substitute with Tom Berenger. Featuring an ensemble of cast and a powerful performance by Washington Man on Fire has already made its mark at Box Office. When it comes to great action thrillers Scott is no stranger in the trade. The combination of these individuals’ talents had contributed to this new explosive piece. |
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